TRICIA FISH grew up in New Waterford, NS, and was educated at the Ontario College of Art and Design University and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and is an alumni of the Canadian Film Centre’s Feature Film Writing Program.
Tricia made many experimental films and performance art/comedy work in Halifax, Toronto, and New York. She went on to crave a deeper understanding of narrative, and while learning about screenplay worked in many capacities on crews – from shooting her own shorts to her first stint on a crew as an art-department leech-wrangler (don’t ask) to PA fetching wheat grass juice for directors, to stunt-doubling on the open ocean, to wardrobe, actor, set decorator, art department co-ordinator on a massive American film shooting in Lunenburg, to first AD and documentary producer of the award-winning Folk Art Found Me. She was admitted to a residency at the Canadian Film Centre (The Norman Jewison-created professional training program) where two of her shorts were selected for production, and she met creative people who would form her lifelong gang. After a ten-year-reunion at her high school, Tricia created her breakthrough feature New Waterford Girl, a story inspired by the fierce loyalty and comedy of growing up in a small mining town in Cape Breton. The film featured newcomer Liana Balaban and a roster of the Maritime’s finest actors, as well as brat-packer Andrew McArthy as teacher Cecil Sweeney. The female buddy comedy about lust and escape was produced by Sienna Films’ Jennifer Kawaja and Julia Sereny and directed by Allan Moyle, premiered at Sundance and TIFF, and went on to break domestic box office records. NWG was nominated for seven Canadian Screen Awards and earned broad critical praise including in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Variety, and Canada’s national press. It launched Tricia’s career writing her brand of comedy – absurd, grounded, and sad-funny.
Tricia has since written for a wide variety of formats, networks, production companies, and streamers such as CBC, BBC, Netflix, Global, HBOMax. She has experience with everything from comedy to drama, animation, documentary narration, docudrama, and a BAFTA-winning teen faux-reality dance series – and helped develop its spin-off.
Tricia was recently nominated for a 2024 Writers’ Guild of Canada Comedy Award for her episode “Sort of Hospital Again” for the Peabody-awarded series Sort Of (CBC/HBOMax, created by Fab Filippo and Bilal Baig, produced by Sphere Media). She was thrilled to write an episode of Small Achievable Goals (CBC), the comedy series created by Baroness Von Sketch Show performers Meredith MacNeil and Jen Whalen. She is currently developing a romantic comedy series with Sphere Media.
Fish has served as an advisor or juror for Telefilm, the CFC, on national film festivals and conferences, and the Heritage Minister’s Advisory Panel on Film. She has received Canada Council grants for her work in film and writing, and an Ontario Arts Council grant for a short story collection.
Tricia also loves to work with other writers and producers to develop their scripts, and mentors emerging writers through her screenwriting courses at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies.
Tricia Fish lives and works between Toronto/Tkaronto and Lunenburg/E’se’katik and has two kids. She can’t live without them or espresso or once in a while smashing down walls to do DIY reno in some old shack or another.
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